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The Transport Department (TD) announced today (February 28) that the data analysis and consolidation of results of the Travel Characteristics Survey (TCS) 2011 have been completed. The report and the executive summary of the TCS are released and now available on the department's website (www.td.gov.hk).
Over 35 000 households were interviewed to collect the data on the travel characteristics of Hong Kong residents. The TD has conducted analysis on the data gathered to better understand the travel patterns and transport mode preferences of residents, their usage of private vehicles and so forth. The data will also be used for subsequent updating and enhancement of the overall transport models in future transport planning.
Regarding travel patterns, the results indicated that over 12.6 million trips were made by different transport modes (known as mechanised trips) on a weekday (Mondays to Fridays) and the average mechanised trip rate per person was 1.83 trips, which was close to the 1.82 trips recorded in the TCS 2002.
The peak hours for mechanised trips on a weekday were found to be 8am to 9am and 6pm to 7pm, each accounting for about 12 per cent of the daily trips made. The mean journey time was 40 minutes, as compared to 39 minutes in the TCS 2002. Among trips made for different purposes, the trips from home to workplace or vice versa generally took a longer journey time with a mean of 47 minutes.
The majority (84 per cent) of the mechanised trips made involved only one transport mode. The average number of boardings per trip was 1.17, which was slightly lower than the number of 1.19 in the TCS 2002. For all the mechanised trips made the public transport mode was the most used, accounting for 88 per cent of the total, as compared to 89 per cent in the TCS 2002.
As for transport mode preferences, railways replaced franchised bus services to become the most used transport mode. The merged rail network (including MTR and LRT) and franchised buses carried 30 per cent and 27 per cent respectively of the total daily boardings of all mechanised trips during weekdays.
On the availability of private cars, about 14 per cent of the households (or about 340 000 households) in Hong Kong owned private cars. About 10 per cent of the private cars were company-owned. The availability of private cars was observed to be closely correlated with the travel distance between household locations and the urban areas, type of housing, household income and household size.
In addition, the mean number of weekdays of private vehicle usage by households with private cars or motorcycles (i.e. private vehicle-available households) per week during daytime and nighttime were 2.9 days and 1.7 nights respectively, less than the corresponding 3.4 days and 2.3 nights in the TCS 2002. The mean number of days of private vehicle usage during weekends (Saturday and Sunday) was 1.4 days, the same as it was in the TCS 2002.
The data and information collected from the TCS 2011 will be applied in future transport planning. The TD was satisfied with the overall response rate and would like to express its gratitude to the households interviewed for their support and co-operation.
Ends/Friday, February 28, 2014
Issued at HKT 15:30
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